From Peter Suber's Open Access News
OA in Europe and beyond
Richard Poynder, Open Access: The War in Europe, Open and Shut? March
15, 2007.
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2007/03/open-access-war-in-europe.html
This is another detailed and wide-ranging (32 pp.) Poynder
investigation. Focusing primarily on the EC's February Communication
on OA, Poynder also discusses the Brussels Declaration, the AAP hiring
of Eric Dezenhall, the journal pricing crisis, the financial outlook
for full and hybrid OA journals, the CERN project to convert particle
physics journals to OA, the HHMI-Elsevier deal, prices charged for
gold (and now green) OA, and the imminent re-introduction of FRPAA.
I excerpt only Richard's preface:
"As the battle for Open Access (OA) to the scientific literature has
intensified, so different fronts of conflict have opened up. With the
proposed US Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) on hold as
a result of the American election, the main action in February was
in Europe - where the European Commission (EC) announced a number
of measures intended to support OA.
"However, to the disappointment of OA advocates - and despite the
recommendations of its own study - the EC chose not to introduce
a mandate requiring all publicly-funded research to be made freely
available in open repositories. Why did the EC step back from the
brink, and where does this leave the OA Movement? ...
"The EC's long-awaited policy on Open Access was published as
a Communication on 15th February, and formally announced at a
conference on scientific publishing held in Brussels.
"While the Commission has decided that it will encourage researchers
to publish their papers in "author-pays" OA, or hybrid, journals it
chose not to introduce a self-archiving mandate. Rather it will issue
programme-specific "guidelines" for making publicly-funded research
available on the Web after an embargo period. This, it says, will
be done on a sectoral basis, taking into account the specificity of
the different scholarly and scientific disciplines.
"What this guideline approach will mean in practice, commented OA
advocate Peter Suber in his March newsletter, is for the moment
unclear. "It doesn't tell us when it will issue the guidelines,
whether the guidelines will require or merely encourage OA - [or]
- what the maximum permissible embargo will be - [However] ... It
does tell us that the guidelines will vary by discipline and funding
program; hence even if the rules in some areas are strong enough,
others are likely to be weak."
"Speaking to CORDIS News on February 17th, Horst Forster, director
of digital content at the EC's directorate general for information
society and media, confirmed: "We [the Commission] will not have a
mandate on Open Access."
"In other words, the EC seems inclined to adopt a voluntary, rather
than compulsory, approach. The aim, Forster told CORDIS News, is
to encourage experiments with new publishing business models that
may improve access to and dissemination of scientific information,
and to initiate a policy debate.
"So why has the EC retreated from a mandate? ..."
Excerpted by Peter Suber, Open Access News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_03_11_fosblogarchive.html#117405291424516246
Received on Sun Mar 18 2007 - 12:41:24 GMT